


Low Tide

by emmbright



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 11:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4959706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmbright/pseuds/emmbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers through "DeadAlive"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Low Tide

He dreams that he is twelve years old, furiously pedaling his bike past the docks in Menemsha. The salty sea wind whips his hair into his eyes, and the smell of motor oil and fish from nearby boats fills his flared nostrils as he pants, fighting to go faster. A few grizzled fishermen wave to him as he flies by, scrawny legs pumping, but he doesn't take the time to wave back, as he usually does.

His sister has vanished, but he knows where she is. He has to get to her, has to rescue her before they can pin her down, slice her open, and bury her in the cold, hard ground. He pedals and pedals, but it's like a cartoon, the kind he and Samantha watch on Saturday mornings. The same background passes behind him, the same burly fishermen wave hello again and again and he never gets anywhere, never saves her, or Scully, or the child--

Mulder gasps, jerking awake so quickly that he nearly loses the IV taped to his hand. The graying, paneled ceiling above him seems to spin, and as his breathing slowly calms he reassures himself that he's still in the hospital. He could swear he tastes the briny Vineyard air, until he realizes that what he's tasting are tears.

Lifting his free hand to dry his face takes energy he doesn't have to spare, so he lets his cheeks dry on their own, lets the sting of salt in his wounds remind him that he's alive.

Three months he's been dead and buried, Scully said, and he kept searching for some sign that she was joking, that her words were just some monumental prank. The blighted look on her face told him that she believed it, though. What she once would've dismissed outright as the worst kind of science fiction, she now accepts as truth. It was the first change he noticed in her, but certainly not the last, or the most surprising.

The familiar odor of hospital antiseptic mingles with the crisp, clean scent of Scully, but she's not in the room. Glancing around him he sees a black canvas totebag sitting on the floor beneath the bedside chair, advertising the fact that she'll soon be back, that she intends to stay, and that at least $75 of her hard-earned government salary was once donated to PBS.

He doesn't know what's inside the bag, but he imagines it filled with pastel-colored yarn and knitting needles, extra clips for her service revolver, travel size packets of Kleenex, for those hormonal moments, and the latex gloves she always has with her. She is a mother, or soon will be, but she's Agent Scully, too.

Seeing his strong, competent partner weep as she stood to show him her round belly was the biggest shock he's received in either of his lives. He doesn't understand how and isn't at all sure he wants it, but he's supposed to be happy. He's pretty sure of that.

A blur of red and black pauses in front of the frosty window, peering in. The door slowly opens, Scully's head appearing first as she checks to see if he's asleep. When she sees that he isn't, she smiles.

"You're really here." She walks toward him, carefully lowering her bulk into the chair and grasping his gray-skinned hand in hers. Her voice holds a note of wonder he's rarely heard before. Invisible men, visions in Buddhist temples, resurrected lovers -- Scully's a tough one to impress.

"You were expecting maybe Garry Shandling?" he says. He tries to smile, but it feels unnatural, his taut skin stretched uncomfortably over his cheeks.

Scully tightens her grip on his hand. "I never know what to expect anymore, Mulder."

"Yeah, I know the feeling." Without thinking, he lets his eyes drop to her belly.

Scully's silent for a moment, her brows drawn together. The worried crease between them, the one he'd once dreamed of smoothing away forever, is deeper than before -- a furrow dug with grief as deep as his grave. She bites her lower lip, scraping away her lipstick.

"Mulder, maybe we should talk about the ba--"

"I'm thirsty, Scully," he interrupts. He can't handle this conversation now, and besides, his throat is parched. He runs his tongue over dry, flaky lips. "Water?"

"Yes, of course," she says, apologetically. Standing, Scully pours him some water from a small plastic pitcher that appeared in the room while he was sleeping. She holds the cup for him, guiding the straw into his mouth to let him drink. Her mothering instinct has always been strong, especially when it comes to him.

"Thanks," he says as she sets the cup on the bedside table. "You know you've been dead a long time when D.C. tap water starts tasting good."

This comment draws another moment of silence from her. She looks like she might cry again, and Mulder feels a twinge of guilt.

"Maryland," she finally says. The searching look she's giving him makes him a little nervous.

"What?"

"Maryland tap water. We're in Bethseda."

"Oh," he says, wondering if that's something she already told him. Mulder exhales slowly, searching for something safe to say. A hundred smartass nearly-dead-guy remarks come to mind, but he's afraid of getting her weepy again. "Did you make your calls?"

Scully nods and sits back down with a sigh. "Yeah. My cell phone battery died and I had to scrounge around for coins. I should've used my credit card, I guess, but I wasn't thinking."

"Oh," he says again. Talk of credit cards and pay phones feels as surreal as everything else he's heard in the past few hours. He tries to relax against the pillows as the ceiling resumes its twirling.

"The guys say hello, and welcome home. I've never heard them sound that happy in my life, Mulder. I think Langly might even have fainted."

"Really?" he manages, hoping he sounds interested.

"Yeah," she says, chuffing a quiet laugh. "I heard a definite thud in the background."

Mulder nods and closes his eyes. He can't imagine what it'll be like to face those guys again. To face everyone who went to his funeral, cried at his grave, and got on with their lives. He should be grateful to be back, he knows, but there's too damn much to deal with. Part of him thinks oblivion sounds pretty good right about now.

"My mother will be here in the morning," she says. "And Skinner said he'd drop by some time tomorrow."

His eyes fly back open at that. He doesn't want to see Skinner, the last person he talked to before this whole nightmare began, and the thought of seeing the questions in Margaret Scully's eyes while her hugely pregnant daughter watches over them is something he could definitely do without.

"You know, I don't think I'm quite pretty enough for company just yet, Scully," he says. He tries to keep the panic out of his voice, but she knows him too well, and reaches for his hand.

"Mulder, you don't have to see anyone, or do anything you don't feel up to. Mom's coming mostly to fuss over me, and Skinner...well, he feels responsible for what happened to you. He just wants to make sure you're okay. Besides, the doctors probably won't let you have visitors yet, even if you want them."

"You're here," he says, and she flinches a little at the implication that she's simply another visitor. He's afraid he can't do anything but hurt and disappoint her. She's undaunted, though, as she always is.

"Do you really think they could keep me away?" she asks, laying her head on him as she had earlier. She kisses him through the thin cotton of his hospital gown and is silent, her ear pressed to his chest as she listens to his heart beating.

Suddenly she lifts her head, looking at him sadly, as if she's realized something important. "Unless you want me to leave. Would you rather be alone?"

"No," he says quickly, lifting his heavy hand to stroke her baby-soft hair. The alarm he feels at the thought of being without her is stronger than the need to hide from a world that has changed in his absence. A woman who has changed in his absence.

Scully sighs and lowers her head back to his chest, and he lets his hand smooth over her hair until he's too tired to continue.

He closes his eyes, and when at last he falls asleep the dream is different. He's grown now, and somehow it's himself he's searching for, himself he has to rescue before it's too late. The Gunmen wave again and again from the dock as he pedals by, but he can't take the time to wave back. He needs to find Scully, that's his only thought.

When he finally catches sight of her in the distance, her hair tossing in the sharp sea breeze, he's overwhelmed with relief and joy, certain she's the only one who can save him.

As she turns and smiles, though, he sees that she's not alone. In her arms there's a small, wriggling baby wrapped in a knitted pastel-colored blanket, and her eyes quickly return to the child when it starts to cry.

He tries to tell her that they have to go, but she shakes her head. "We can't," she says, rocking the baby back and forth. "We have the baby to consider."

How can she think of the baby, he wonders, while he's still out there somewhere, so far away from home.

She reads his mind, as she can in dreams. "You are home," she says. "Stop looking, Mulder. You're safe now."

But he doesn't know how to stop, and he's not sure he wants to, so he climbs back on his bike and turns around, pumping madly against the chill ocean wind, leaving them behind.

 

end

\- - -

Many thanks to alanna, Lilydale, and Pteropod for wonderful beta.


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